she was soon consumed to the water’s edge. For his conduct on this occasion, our officer was presented by the Capitan Pacha, with a rich sabre and pelisse. On the 20th Oct. in the same year, he received the first intelligence of his promotion to post rank, for his action off Marseilles, from Captain Inglis, by whom he was succeeded in the command of the Peterel at Rhodes. His commission bears date May 13, 1800.
On his return to England, in the spring of 1801, Captain Austen found his friend Vice-Admiral Gambier was about to assume a command in the Channel fleet, and had applied for him to be appointed his Captain in the Neptune of 98 guns[1]. Circumstances, not necessary to be detailed here, prevented him joining that ship till September following; from which period he continued to command her till Oct. 1802, when he was superseded by Captain Drury, and at the same time declined the offer of a frigate made him by Earl St. Vincent[2].
At the renewal of hostilities in 1803, Captain Austen was appointed to embody and command a corps of Sea Fencibles at Ramsgate, where he remained ten months. In May 1804, he received a commission for the Leopard, a 50-gun ship, bearing the flag of Rear-Admiral Louis, with whom he served during the remainder of that year, off Boulogne; and afterwards removed into the Canopus of 80 guns, on the Mediterranean station; the Rear-Admiral having been sent thither at the particular request of Lord Nelson, who in a letter to Earl Moira (now Marquis of Hastings), written about this period, makes the following mention of Captain Austen:
“You may rely upon every attention in my power to Captain Austen. I hope to see him alongside a French 80-gun ship, and he cannot be better placed than in the Canopus, which was once a French Admiral’s ship, and struck to me. Captain Austen I knew a little of before; he is an excellent young man.”
The Canopus accompanied Lord Nelson to the West Indies,
